TAGGED AS: New York Comic Con, streaming, television, TV
Star Trek offered a first look at season 4 of its Original Series prequel, Discovery, at New York Comic Con. The event took place over four days, October 7-10, and also featured a panel for The Expanse, which announced its season 6 premiere date, and trailers debuted for Outlander, Hanna, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and more. Plus, The Wheel of Time dropped a NYCC exclusive scene, and USA’s Chucky series premiered to a few Fresh reviews.
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“Everything has led to this moment,” Martin-Green told the audience. Joined onstage by much of the Discovery cast, plus executive producer and writer Michelle Paradise, Martin-Green added, “Everything has led to sitting down in that chair and assuming that role. Of course I know what it means to me, for all the obvious reasons historically speaking and culturally speaking.”
As the season 4 trailer indicates, there’s a lot of galaxy-saving action in store for Burnham and her crew. David Cronenberg is slated to return to the series as Kovich, for one, but the central threat that drives much of the season’s action is a gravitational anomaly that puts billions of lives at risk.
(Photo by Michael Gibson ©Paramount+ 2021, All Rights Reserved.)
“I don’t think any of us expected to have a threat this big so soon after jumping to this future,” Martin-Green said . “That was huge, and then I know, at least for Burnham, it’s a lot. Here we are again with a threat of great, great magnitude.”
Wilson Cruz added of what’s to come: “We’re gonna be OK, but we have to first admit that we’re not so that we can get to the solution. So many of these characters in our cast and in our story are still being formed, they’re still learning who they are, what their strengths are, what their part is to play on this ship. And part of their growth comes through how they deal with the trauma they’ve experienced singularly and collectively.”
It’s not lost on the creatives, either, that season 4 is dropping in a particularly tumultuous time. We saw echoes of real-world divisions baked into season 3, and Paradise assured that similar stakes would exist in these new episodes.
“One of the things that we do, and it’s baked into the DNA of‘ Star Trek, is that Star Trek looks at everything in the world around us, and we look at ways via the show, via science fiction to reflect those things thematically,” she said. “We were looking at, when we came into the season, what is happening in the world around us? What are all of us collectively dealing with? Uncertainty is one of the big things for us thematically. Because that was happening very much in the world around us for everyone here, we’re still kind of in that. And so looking at: What does that mean for each of our characters individually? What does that mean for their relationships with one another? What does it mean for the Federation, and for non-Federation planets? What does it mean as a whole?”
“Six episodes to do this much material is difficult,” showrunner Naren Shankar admitted on his NYCC panel with the cast on Friday. But there were also some positives. “Every episode feels as intense as it could possibly be. You never feel like you’re letting your foot off the gas pedal. By the time you get to the end, it feels cathartic.”
The book series’ co-author and series writer Ty Franck added: “We had to write every script so there was no fat in it. There was no extra. We had to tell the story we were here to tell.”
(Photo by Shane Mahood/Amazon Studios)
At a more intimate panel with co-star Wes Chatham on Saturday, Steven Strait shared that the streamlined final season also makes each dramatic beat even more calculated and effective.
“You need an end point that’s very specific,” Strait said. “You have to be aiming for something very, very specific to get there. So, every beat is justified.”
“Season 6 is basically a love letter to all of you [fans] because it’s the biggest and best thing that we have done to this point,” Chatham added. “We are so excited to be able to share it with you guys and cap off the relationship that we’ve had together.”
More trailers, teasers, and clips from NYCC:
● In The Wheel of Time clip, we got a first look at Rosamund Pike’s entrance in The Wheel of Time, coming to Amazon Prime Video Nov. 18.
● Psych 3: This Is Gus premiered its trailer and announced its debut: Nov. 18 on Peacock.
● Hanna season 3 trailer announced the series’ Nov. 24 premiere on Amazon Prime Video.
● The Blade Runner: Black Lotus premiere date wait is over. Mark your calendars for Nov. 13 to see the Adult Swim series.
● Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is already heating up 2022.
It’s always risky to revisit a classic on the big screen — especially when said classic starred screen legends Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and Rick Moranis and went on to create a horror-comedy-action genre all its own. So a lot of eyes are on the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife reboot when it hits screens next month. Fortunately, the NYCC crowd was surprised by stars Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, and filmmaker Jason Reitman on Friday with a screening of the complete film. The early consensus? It’s a laugh-out-loud adventure and worthy successor to the originals and features a standout performance from Paul Rudd and its young star, Grace.
USA Network’s Chucky also premiered, generating three Fresh reviews for the series based on the film franchise. Logline: “In the new Chucky television series, an idyllic American town is thrown into chaos after a vintage ‘Good Guy’ doll turns up at a suburban yard sale. Soon, everyone must grapple with a series of horrifying murders that begin to expose the town’s deep hypocrisies and hidden secrets. Meanwhile, friends and foes from Chucky’s past creep back into his world and threaten to expose the truth behind his mysterious origins as a seemingly ordinary child who somehow became this notorious monster.” Don Mancini, who penned the film franchise, wrote the TV adaptation, directed the first episode and serves as showrunner on the series.
Star Trek legend William Shatner took to the NYCC stage by himself on Thursday to wax poetic on his time in the industry and to tease his upcoming trip to space. At 90 years old, he will be the oldest person to ever make the trip. “I’m Captain Kirk, and I’m terrified,” he quipped.
While we may not catch him in the upcoming Disney+ Hawkeye series, will we ever get more of Black Widow’s Red Guardian, as played by Stranger Things star David Harbour? We’re keeping our fingers crossed. “It was such an honor and such a privilege to be in that company,” Harbour said Saturday of joining the MCU. “We really got to play in this fun, complex way and create these relationships that I hope you’ll see more of in the future in more detail.”
Rotten Tomatoes held our own panel to promote our upcoming book The Ultimate Binge Guide: 296 Must-See Shows That Changed the Way We Watch TV, releasing this fall. Panelists IndieWire Vice President and Executive Editor Eric Kohn and freelance critic Aramide Tinubu joined former Rotten Tomatoes Editor-in-Chief Joel Meares to discuss top shows featured in the book in an event hosted by “Rotten Tomatoes Is Wrong” podcast co-host Mark Ellis.
